Ministry of Justice trialled facial recognition on prison visitors in December 2018 to January 2019 and is now deploying it at three prisons. Our legal and policy officer Griff Ferris, said:

“The use of facial recognition in prisons comes as a total shock to everyone, including the Commissioners who have been tasked to oversee this new surveillance technology.

“Government seeking public approval for facial recognition cameras in low-rights environments such as prisons is a staggering move, since we know it’s also trying to introduce them as a general public surveillance tool. Despite facing our legal challenge, we’re quite surprised that the Government is continuing to take such an experimental approach to human rights.”